Smash!
by circusfreak88
Summary: Oneshot writen after Trey's attempted rape. Strong language.


Disclaimer: None of the characters are mine.  
A/N: I was inspired by Imogen Heap's song _The Moment I Said It_ for this fic.

Enjoy and feedback always apriciated people.

Circus.

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SMASH!

She knocked on the door; her fingers were balled around her change from the bus so tight that she felt that the shape of the eagle was etched into her skin

She knocked on the door; her fingers were balled around her change from the bus so tight that she felt that the shape of the eagle was etched into her skin. She felt the pain yet she didn't loosen her grip; she just kept knocking, praying for someone to answer the door.

She watched as a figure slowly started to take shape behind the glass, she watched the figure come closer and closer and she watched as the door slowly opened before.

"You know where she is?" She asked quickly, not giving the girl time to register the body in front of her. The girl began to open her mouth but quickly shut it as if re-thinking her options. The girl simply allowed a smile to etch across her face as she folded her arms and leant against the doorframe.

"What brings you here, Barbie?"

"Jodie cut the crap," she raised a hand to her temples and slowly started rubbing, trying to control both her temper and her confusion.

She didn't know how she'd ended up her. She remembered the beach, the fear. She remembered running, running far and as fast as her legs would carry her. She remembered getting on the bus for the first time in her life but that was it. She didn't know how all that had resulted in her ending up here.

"You know where she is?" Marissa asked again.

"You really think I would tell you if I did?" Jodie's smile increased, Marissa could tell that she was loving the power that she had over her. "Seriously?" she was almost laughing at her.

"Please." Marissa was tired, she didn't have the energy to fight for this, she just wanted to see her, she just wanted to be pulled into her arms and have her make everything better. "Please."

Her voice was barely a whisper but she couldn't get it any louder, she was drowning in noise though the L.A suburb was quiet. She was struggling just to maintain the time and place, she was fighting against getting swallowed up into her memory, to get dragged kicking and screaming back to the beach. A small whisper was all that she could manage.

Her hand was back at her temple, her palm obscuring her view, she couldn't see Jodie faltering, losing her resolve, her hard exterior, becoming just as confused as she was.

"Do you want to come in? Have a drink of water?" Jodie asked, stepping aside, no longer blocking the entrance.

"I just want to know where she is. I need to see her." She had no one else to turn to.

"Wait here." Jodie instructed, stepping back into her house and disappearing from view.

Marissa waited, her hand still firmly gripping the change from the bus, relying on the dull ache that it caused to tell her that this was real, that this was actually happening and that this wasn't just all a terrible dream that she could wake up from.

She silently pleaded to Jodie to hurry up, to not leave her alone, she'd been left alone too long already – she needed company to keep her from her thoughts, the thoughts that took her back to the beach, back to him.

She'd called Summer and the phone had just rung and rung until she'd reached voicemail, she'd contemplated finding her, she was at Zach's house, but what would she have said? What would have Summer have done anyway.

She missed Ryan so much, but he was the last person she could turn to. It didn't matter anyway, as he was the other side of the country.

She was alone.

She was scared.

She'd ended up here.

A piece of paper was silently slipped into her hand. Jodie didn't say anything, there was nothing to be said. Marissa looked from her hand, subconsciously grasping at the note and then up at Jodie's face. A face that had once looked at her with disgust was now looking at her with eyes filled with concern. Jodie didn't have a clue what was going on but it was obvious that Marissa needed help. It slowly dawned upon her that the look that she was receiving from Jodie now was the same look that every face would give her.

"Do you need a lift?" Jodie asked, breaking the silence, bringing Marissa out of her self-pity.

Marissa looked back down at her hand and it struck her what she was holding, she was holding the address back to her. Back to safety. Back to something other than this.

"Is it far?" she asked quietly.

"No." Jodie responded, back leaning upon the doorframe. "Do you know L.A?"

Marissa shook her head, staring down at the address in her hand. "I think I can work it out though, its just numbers." She shrugged.

This was all so weird. It was like she had fallen at the beach and when she got up she found her self somewhere new, some parallel universe. The money in her hand told her that this was the same world that she knew; yet she no longer knew anything. Instead she was back into childhood, an age of confusion, ignorance and naivety.

She slowly turned round and started walking back along the path and on to the sidewalk. She stood there for a moment, figuring out which way to turn. A thing so simple yet steeped in greater meaning, an irony covering it distracting from the realness of it all. If it hadn't had been so sad it would have been funny.

She heard Jodie's door close behind her, she was obviously tired of waiting for her to move on. She wondered what Jodie was going to do, if she was going to call and warn her or if she would simply return to bed and pass this off as a nothing more than a dream. Something that Marissa wanted to be able to do, more than anything.

She found herself under a street lamp. She didn't know she'd moved, yet here she was. It was as if her body had taken over, the same way it had tone to get her onto the bus and to L.A in the first place.

She was amazed how she was the only life that was lit up by the artificial light. It was eerie that L.A was so quiet. Dead almost. Mirroring herself, as if G-d wanted it to show her herself in the world around her. Maybe she was just oblivious to it all. Maybe the world was passing her by and it was her that was invisible, not the other way round.

She glanced down at the, now crumpled, piece of paper in her hand and studied the address, only looking up from it to read the street signs.

She was close. It would all be over soon.

The night was noiseless, the crickets not even making a sound, as if it were a moment of silence out of respect. Only it wasn't a moment. It was eternity. All Marissa could hear was her self. Her elevated heart beat, the sound of her shoes hitting the concrete as she slowly walked, the waves and the screaming of the beach playing over and over in her head.

She continued walking. As soon as she got there she could speak again and the noises that she heard would be drowned out by the sound of another. The soothing sound of answers, of help, of sanctuary.

She looked up, her head unusually heavy and so had been hung all night, it helped though, it meant that she avoided eye contact with anyone, everything, all she'd seen were her feet. Now though, her head was higher, her eyes staring at the house before her. It was not how she'd imagined. It was normal. So unlike anything she'd expected.

She slowly walked forward, finally reaching the destination after travelling for what felt like an eternity, these last few steps were taking longer than that though.

She knocked on the door; her fingers were balled around her change from the bus so tight that she felt that the shape of the eagle was etched into her skin. She felt the pain yet she didn't loosen her grip; she just kept knocking, praying for someone to answer the door.

She watched as a figure slowly started to take shape behind the glass, she watched the figure come closer and closer and she watched as the door slowly opened before.

"Alex," she managed to breathe out before throwing herself into the welcoming arms of her ex.

She was finally back to her. Back to safety. Back to something other than that.

"Marissa." Alex barely whispered her name as she held her tight, next to her body. She felt Marissa relax into her and then she felt her shake as she released the tears she'd been holding this entire journey. "Hey, hey, hey." She tried to soothe, "what's up? Has something happened? Marissa?" Alex moved her so that she was holding her by her shoulders at arm's length, trying to get Marissa to look into her eyes.

"I don't know what to do. I'm sorry, I had no where else I could go."

"Its okay," Alex told her, pulling her back into her embrace allowing Marissa to cry freely once more. "My parent's are away, you're free to come in, you can stay even. I'll get you a drink and you can stay the night and when you feel up to it you can tell me what happened." She rubbed Marissa's back, as she would have a small child, but that was all that Marissa was right now, she was a shell of her former self.

Alex felt her nod into her shoulder, and she took this as an 'Okay' and led her inside, sitting her down on her parent's sofa in her parent's front room. She turned to head into the kitchen when she was pulled back by a small voice begging her to stay.

"Don't leave," Marissa said, "not again."

Alex sat down beside her and rearranged Marissa so that her head was on her lap and her hands were stroking the brown curls she never thought she'd see again.

"I'm here." Alex told her. "Come on, tell me what happened Riss. I'm here for you."

So Marissa told her. She told her about the beach, about the boy and his brother, about the drugs, about the betrayal, about the attempted rape and about the drift wood that stopped him. As Marissa told her, Alex tensed up losing the ability to feel anything except her own twitching muscles. Marissa's hair still slipped though her fingers as she tried to relax the girl in her lap, yet, just like Marissa, she was no longer herself.

She listened to Marissa talk and cry and try and come up with reasons and explanations. She listened to Marissa break down as she blamed herself. All the time she became more and more angry, rage filling her like nothing she'd ever known, until she was no longer herself.

She waited until Marissa had cried herself to sleep, exhausted from stress and worry, exhausted from crying for so long. She carefully lifted Marissa and laid her back down on the sofa, only this time Alex was standing, her tear stained crotch testament from the shock of the early morning revelations. She quietly tip toed around the sleeping girl trying to formulate some sort of coherent thought, forcing her brain to work, forcing her brain to do something, anything but picture a scene on Newport beach just a few hours ago.

As Alex paced, wearing down the carpet bit by bit, step by step, Marissa slowly woke. Though she only had a vague recollection of where she was she knew that what she'd prayed so hard for, to a G-d she didn't believe in, to some sort of higher power, any that could take away this night. She knew, however, it was the same one and that now she was awake nothing had changed except for now she was lying alone in a front room belonging to two people she had never met, watching their daughter pace.

Their eyes met; each exchanging a hurt and pain that neither could explain away and neither could possibly make better. Alex's lids were clearly heavy, her eyes dark where she had not yet slept giving her face a hollow that Marissa had never seen before.

"Go back to sleep," Alex told her, walking across the room, bending down and kissing her gently on her forehead, "I'll be back before you wake."

"Its not even light out." Marissa said, trying to work Alex out, "But you've somewhere to be?"

"I'll come back to you, I promise." She told her, kissing her once more, this time lingering longer, a kiss that reminded Marissa of a time she wanted to return to, with that kiss Marissa knew everything and instantly wished she knew nothing at all.

She sat up sharply and stared deep into Alex's eyes, searching for a sign that what she thought she had just discovered was all a lie. Alex's eyes gave nothing away and Marissa's released more tears, afraid of what was about to happen.

"I know what you're thinking," Marissa said, struggling to overcome her tears, "but… you're not thinking straight. I've never seen you like this." She confessed to her, as the tears made trails down her face, staining it once more.

She hated the look she saw in Alex: the unwavering resolution making her empty. As if the knowledge of the beach had wiped away her soul and replaced it with only hate, an uncompromising hate that Marissa feared.

"I don't like it, I don't like it," Marissa repeated, the tears falling harder now, "I don't like it at all."

"I have to do this, for you." Alex told her kneeling before her, holding her damp face in her hands, "I will fix this, I will make it better." She told her, before rising and grabbing her keys off the coffee table.

"Just put back the car keys or somebody's going to get hurt." Marissa begged her as Alex reached for her cell in her pocket. "Who are you calling at this hour? Sit down," she pleaded, making space next to her on the sofa, "come round, I need you now."

"I know you do and that's why I'm going to do this." She told her typing in numbers as Marissa rose to her feet.

"We'll work it all out together," Marissa took the phone from her hand and threw it aside, so that Alex was holding her once more, "we're getting no where tonight."

"How can this be worked out? What can be done? Can't you see that this is the only way?" Alex pushed Marissa back down and went to retrieve her cell from the corner. "I'm going to call some guys, and we'll sort it." Her hand was at her temple. "We'll sort it." She repeated as if trying to convince herself more than she was Marissa, as Alex went back to pacing the living room.

"I've never seen you like this." Marissa ringed her hands as she watched Alex transform before her. "You're scaring me, you're scaring me," she repeated, "you're scaring me to death."

Those words forced Alex to stop in her tracks. They cut into her, reawakened the person that had been sleeping inside, a shock induced coma almost. She went back to Marissa and took her back into her arms. Holding her closely, stroking the back of her head, trying to soothe her once more.

"I'm sorry, baby, I'm sorry. I never meant to." Alex whispered into her ear. "I'm doing this for you though."

"I promise, it'll all seem better somehow, in time." Marissa tried.

"FUCK MARISSA!" She threw the cell across the room, making it hit the wall, crumbling into pieces as it came into contact with it. "Time cannot heal this."

"DON'T!" She cried back. "Don't." she pleaded as yet more tears ran down her face.

"I have to." Alex told her, kissing on the forehead, just as she had before and just as she hoped she would again.

She didn't want to leave her but she had to. She had to let her fall so that when she returned she could pick her back up again, but first she had to leave, she had to do this for her.

Marissa heard the door slam and the glass shake in their frames as a consequence. She heard the engine of the jeep fire up and then she heard it accelerate off into the distance. She knew its destination. She knew where it was going. She knew that when it returned, if it returned, the person inside it would be dead forever.

Marissa crumpled into a heap on the floor, as she was left sobbing. The images of earlier had been wiped away by the images of what she knew Alex was going to do. She could only cry, she was too weak to do anything else.

She never wanted this and yet by finding Alex it was inevitable.

"The moment I said it." She cried, the coin still in her hand, the eagle etched into her skin.

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R&R, thank you. Circus.


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